This session will be lead by two statewide and two national organizations working to end gun violence. There will be four 15-minute presentations by each of the four leaders, with different topics related to ending gun violence. Following that hour the leaders will provide a three-month plan for advocating to end gun violence. To help participants move to action, the presenters will narrow down the steps to help you prepare to take action in month one.

Presenters and Presentation Topic

Topic #1: Advocate and Leader Development

We will discuss how Brady develops leaders and advocates who fight for safer communities, and our strategies for shifting the culture related to secure storage of weapons through our End Family Fire PSAs, Asking Saves Kids (Ask) Campaign, and Secure Storage Working Group.

Presenter: JP Thomas is an organizer with years of experience working in campaigns, advocacy, and policy. Before returning to Brady United as Organizing Director, he was the VP for Voice of the People, and Director of Voice of the People Action, national nonprofits with the mission of giving the people a greater voice in the policymaking process. In 2020, he served as the Voter Protection Organizing Director for the Joe Biden Presidential Campaign in Wisconsin, building the program that recruited and trained poll observers and poll workers across the state and helped thousands of voters cast their ballot via the campaign’s voter hotline.

Brady United is America's oldest gun violence prevention organization, founded by Jim and Sarah Brady, after the assassination attempt on President Reagan, that almost cost Jim his life. Brady United approaches ending gun violence in America in three critical ways: changing the laws, changing the industry, and changing the culture.

Topic #2: Gun Violence Prevention Laws

Focus will be on sharing the status of the package of gun violence prevention laws currently making their way through the Pennsylvania General Assembly, naming the hurdles that stand in the way of passage, and discussing ways that people can engage and move these critical life-saving laws forward.

Presenter: Ashleigh Deemer is the Campaign Director for CeaseFirePA, leading a team of grassroots organizers and building powerful campaigns to push for life-saving action to end gun violence. She comes to this work with nearly 20 years of experience advocating for safe and healthy communities in Pennsylvania, including organizing campaigns to protect the commonwealth's environment, and crafting policies that improve quality of life for families and workers.

CeaseFirePA is a statewide nonprofit advocacy organization focused on ending the epidemic of gun violence in Pennsylvania. Our goal is simple: everyone in the Commonwealth should live in safe communities. To make that vision a reality, we're organizing a powerful grassroots movement, and mobilizing an undeniable demand for the state legislature to pass life-saving gun violence prevention laws.

Topic #3: Firearms Threat to America's Youth and Solutions to Stop Gun Violence

The Alliance for Gun Responsibility works to save lives and eliminate the harms caused by gun violence in every community through advocacy, education, and partnerships.

Presenter: Gregory Joseph serves as Communications Director for the Alliance for Gun Responsibility. Prior to joining the gun violence prevention movement Gregory served as Director of Communications for the City of New Orleans, Louisiana.

Topic #4: Gun Trafficking

Most people are unaware that almost all gun murders are committed with illegal handguns, meaning that the shooter is not the legal purchaser or owner of the handgun.  He or she did not pass the required background check.  Instead, such handguns are supplied to the ‘street’ and criminal markets by traffickers who use ‘straw buyers,’ stand-ins, to acquire guns in bulk to resell to those who cannot pass background checks.  There exist legislative and direct-action ways to diminish gun trafficking, including laws limiting purchasers to a single handgun per month and faithful public attention to the sales practices of rogue or irresponsible gun dealers.

Presenter: Bryan Miller is Co-Founder and Executive Director of Heeding God’s Call to End Gun Violence. Bryan left a career in international business to pursue an end to gun violence since the November 1994 shooting death of his only brother, FBI Special Agent Mike Miller, in a massacre at Washington, DC Police Headquarters.  Bryan led Ceasefire NJ, an advocacy organization that made profound improvement to the Garden State’s gun laws and now leads Pennsylvania’s leading organization devoted to energizing and organizing the PA faith community around ending gun murder and violence. Since 2009, Heeding God’s Call to End Gun Violence uses activities appealing to people of all faiths to energize and organize them and their houses of worship to pursue an end to gun violence.  We seek to block the movement of illegal handguns, which account for the vast bulk of gun murders, from irresponsible or rogue licensed gun dealers to the street and criminal market.  We bring faithful public attention to such ‘bad actor’ gun dealers and have succeeded in causing the shuttering of one of the country’s worst.  We also advocate for legislation to limit handgun sales to diminish gun trafficking and murder.